A blog expanding on the subjects discussed in our movie "Science Sex and the Ladies." We blog critically on a specific intersection of science, sexuality, and feminism; particularly paying attention to how female sexual response is discussed, portrayed, and studied in our culture. So...if you're interested in science, sex, lady stuff, or indie movie making...this is the blog for you.

12.26.2015

What Does Dr. Phil Say about Female Orgasm???? I Knew You'd Want to Know.

I thought some of you might be wondering what the world's most well-known living psychologist has to say about the female orgasm. So, because I care, I googled "dr. phil female orgasm," and immediately found his female orgasm page. It kinda sucks, but it's also kinda not the most craziest or outta wack advice. It's pretty close to what a lot of others are saying, but I will say it has a bit more emphasis than usual on the 'your lack of orgasm is definitely a personal problem' situation, which is fairly annoying. I'll let him talk, though.

Research shows that 90 percent of the problems women have in achieving orgasm stem from a psychological nature. That's good news because it's all about you and it can be overcome. Dr. Phil offers the following advice:

If you can achieve an orgasm alone, but not with a partner, you may have performance anxiety.

Being anxious, worried or feeling pressured to have an orgasm with your partner can work against you. Anxiety is an arousal response — it can cause tension. An orgasm is a relaxation response. Those two are incompatible.

If you're wondering, "Am I doing this right? Is he judging me? Is he having fun? Does he like this?" during intercourse, the anxiety can take you away from your pleasure.

Give yourself permission to change your internal dialogue. Say, "You know what? I am part of this exchange and I do have the right to ask for what I want. And I don't have to have expectancies that I have to perform in some way. I'm going to enjoy this." Give yourself permission to relax and go with the flow.

Okay, so let me just make a couple quick points:

Wouldn't put money on the '90% of women's orgasm problems are psychological' thing. There's no citations here, and I'm just gonna be frank - it really doesn't make much sense.

It's bullshit to jump straight to personal psychological issues. Women as a whole engage in an unfortunately ridiculous amount of sexual interactions that in no way involve stimulating their main organ of sexual pleasure - the clit. It's a reality that would seem simply preposterous if it were switched. Men having as many sexual acts that don't involve their penis as women do that don't involve their clit is unheard of. Given that there is clearly a widespread and under-discussed problem associated with not stimulating the appropriate genital areas, maybe that should be the most prominently considered thing on websites about helping women achieve orgasm.

Still, there is an important psychological element that needs to be considered, but I would argue a huge component of that stems from the above problem about too much sex with too little clit lovin'. Women do engage in a lot of sex throughout their lives that doesn't involve orgasm, so it is not crazy to think that female bodies learn to become aroused during sexual interactions with much more trepidation than male bodies. I mean if your body and mind only associate the beginning parts of sex with an eventual orgasm 70%, 50%, 30% of time or less, then the mind and body might start associating sex with a chore instead of something that is sexually arousing. Where there is no arousal, there is no orgasm, so psychologically training yourself to start associating sex with sexual arousal again could be important, but let's be clear here - that would include beginning to have physically more arousing sex on a more every-single-time kinda basis than was being had before, so the physical element is still quite important.

I agree that anxiety takes away from pleasure. In particular, anxiety can inhibit the physical process of sexual arousal, and since the orgasm is a release of the muscle tension and blood pooling brought on by arousal, then no arousal, no orgasm. Also, his second statement about anxiety, arousal, orgasm and relaxation uses those words in really confusing ways. Although I think I understand what was meant by it, and it seems fine, I would just ignore that one.

I completely agree that giving one's self permission to enjoy sex, to really be part of the activities, and to ask for what one wants is super important. I also love the idea that one should rid themselves of expectancies about performing a certain way. Love it. However, I really think all of that advice turns into useless shit if there is not proper understanding among both people about how women orgasm and about how huge of a wall our culture has created blocking that understanding.

I'd say that first one this way. If you can achieve an orgasm alone, but not with a partner, it's probably because you are rubbing your clitoral/vuvla area when you masturbate and getting your vagina boned when you have sex.

Dr. Phil's statements are followed by information from a few other sources, and actually there's a bit more talk about the importance of the clit there. However, as with pretty much all sex advice, taken all together it seems like the clit is just an extra thing that the unlucky among us must utilize to get the orgasms we should be getting from our vag's - and that's bullshit.